It is known to input data into a device using a standard telephone keypad having twelve keys. The widespread use of portable devices such as cellular telephones and PDAs has created a need to input data on small hand held devices in addition to the traditional telephones. Such devices have been enlarged to accommodate a larger keypad having thirty or more keys so that a character or symbol can be input with the single touch of a single key. However, in enlarging the keypad some of the portability of these devices has been comprised. Therefore, data entry on a standard telephone keypad having three columns and four rows of keys has become desirable. However, the input of characters, symbols, or functions has been a difficult problem because the number of possible characters greatly exceeds the number of available keys. Attempts at solving this problem have included “triple-tapping” wherein a key is pressed a number of times equal to that character's location in a set of characters displayed on the key. This method has been found to be slow and cumbersome. Another method for character input using a standard telephone keypad is “T9”, developed by Tegic Communications. This method associates sequences of groups of letters on each key with a dictionary of common words. This method has also been found to be slow and cumbersome, especially when inputting data that is not a common word or sentence. Another twelve key data entry method includes pressing a first key having a group of characters associated with it and pressing a second key to identify the location of the character within the group. This requires sequentially pressing a plurality of keys, in a particular order, resulting in a slow data input method.